Greetings from Florida! We’ve finally arrived! As I mentioned in my last post, it took us a while to get on the road, but once we did we stopped off at Maryland and then visited my family as we drove south. After that we stopped in Charlotte, which is where I last posted, so that’s where I’ll pick up now.
Charlotte was a nice city — it’s got a feel similar to a city like Philadelphia. It has a good-sized downtown metropolitan area, which empties out and is pretty vacant after 6pm. There are a lot of good restaurants in the downtown area, but the city is really more of a suburban city — very few people live downtown, and most are in a suburb.
The highlight of Charlotte was getting to have lunch with my friend Pete Smolowitz. Pete and I grew up together in Clifton Park, and Pete now lives in Charlotte. Because we were so delayed in our travels, I wasn’t able to give Pete a lot of notice about our arrival in Charlotte, so we were only able to do a quick get-together. Pete, Andrea and I had lunch, and it was really enjoyable to catch up with him, learn a bit about Charlotte from a local, and more importantly, hear a bit about his family and his life. Andrea and I really enjoyed it, and I look forward to the next time we pass through, so we can spend more time with him and his family. Here is a picture of Pete and me:
Some other things of note in Charlotte — we saw a number of historical sites, including the Fourth Ward neighborhood, which was restored by the Junior League. Since our friend Sally is a member of the Junior League, I figured I’d give a shout-out, and show one of the gorgeous houses that were restored. We also went to the museum of craft and design, where I saw a great piece called “The Passion of the Andy”. Check out these pictures:
After Charlotte, we drove to Charleston, South Carolina, which we LOVED. It is a charming town (really a city, but I have a hard time calling it that) with a lot of history. And it is absolutely beautiful. We did a carriage tour of the city, as well as a few walking tours (the “haunted Charleston” tour, and the “dark side of Charleston” tour, where we learned all about prostitution and prohibition in the city). We also visited a plantation, where we learned about slavery and saw the oldest Oak tree in the country. Check out some pictures!
We stayed in Charleston for three nights, by far the longest of any of our stops on the trip (it didn’t hurt that we decided to splurge in Charleston and stay in a nice hotel — we were previously staying in Days Inns and Motel 6’s, so a nice, clean hotel was a real treat!).
We left Charleston on Saturday, April 14, and decided to drive directly to Ft. Lauderdale. We knew it would be a long drive, but it was longer that we thought! 11 hours and 560 miles after departing Charleston, we arrived in Ft. Lauderdale — our new home for the next few months!
From the time we departed from Binghamton to the time we arrived in Ft. Lauderdale, we drove 1590 miles and spent over 39 hours in the car! What a trip!
Needless to say, we were happy to arrive in Florida, and it is especially nice to have a week to settle in and relax down here before dive school starts. It is particularly nice because the weather has been beautiful here, which is not the case back up north, where a northeaster has drenched our friends and family in New York in tons of rain, and has buried Andrea’s house in Binghamton in over a foot of snow! (not ideal conditions for selling a house) 
The house we are renting here is great! It is a 2br/2bath, but one of the bedrooms has been converted into an office. It is not a huge house, but it is a good size for two people and a small dog. And most importantly, it has a PRIVATE BACK YARD! We love the yard, and we can sit out and read outside, get some sun, or BBQ on a real grill!
Check out this quick video tour of our rental house:
As you might have noticed, it was recently my birthday (April 19), and Andrea got me tons of balloons and turned our living room into a little balloon world!
By the way, let me throw a HAPPY BIRTHDAY out to my friend James (a.k.a. Jimmy Flash, Cadillac, and/or Goldie), who turns some variation of old (34 maybe?) on April 20, and an early HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my friend David (a.k.a. Zeit), who turns some variation of old (also 34 maybe?) on May 1.
And finally, even Duffy is enjoying Florida. He has a new sporty haircut, and he loves getting to lie out in the sun with Andrea!
Time for us to head out to the beach! Our dive school starts on Sunday — wish us luck!